


The ghosts at the window echo all our quiet prayers

by Frog_that_writes



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, can you tell the author has a complicated relationship w/ religion, other characters are mentioned but do no appear, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24730348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frog_that_writes/pseuds/Frog_that_writes
Summary: Kristen Applebees did not know how to pray.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	The ghosts at the window echo all our quiet prayers

Kristen Applebees did not know how to pray. 

No, she thought. That wasn’t quite right. Prayer was so inherent to her that her mind would provide a silent amen at the end of a sentence, like the phrase was all she needed in place of punctuation. “I believe.” Did she?

Not anymore, of course. She hadn’t believed in Helio for a while, though her divorce from Helio was a fraction of her life, really. A sixteenth. It doesn’t sound as insignificant when she considers she’s only sixteen years old. But for those first fifteen years she had included a prayer in every part of her life, grace before every meal and a thanks afterwards, an hour every night where her knees would grow as sore as her throat after church when she led the choir. Every moment of doubt or insecurity brought a set of familiar words to the front of her head, a simple prayer that made her feel better.

Maybe that was the problem. She could pray, because of course she could. She learned to pray before she learned to think. She never learned how to think when she prayed.

Every prayer to Helio was a blind chant that was ingrained in her from the moment she was chosen. They had been written long before she was born and would be spoken long after she was (permanently) dead. They were words of comfort and praise and they did  _ nothing.  _

“How would you like me to pray to you?” She whispers one day into an empty church.

_ How would you like to pray to me?  _

The words are not said aloud and they do not appear in her head, but she Feels them in the way she feels every mystery Cassandra presents to her. The answer is so, so unsatisfying but Kristen smiles down at her clasped hands, eyes open only enough to see her knees below her. She stays that way for a few more minutes, kneeling before the altar of her god, in the way Helio was never truly Her God, thinking. There may have been prayers for Cassandra once, but they are long gone, along with everything they used to be. That’s probably for the best honestly, because Kristen can not imagine using someone else’s words to describe someone that is so inherently Her’s. Cassandra does not belong solely to her, because Kristen would not force them to die with her, as a God should never be condemned to the lifetime of a mortal, a human at that, but Kristen Made them in her own image, the furthest she could possibly get from the standard story of creation. She could never imagine using someone else’s words to pray to them.

But was it fair to force the future followers of Cassandra to use her words then? To say that Cassandra would continue to change image for every new follower they gained was likely not sustainable, but Cassandra would also never be truly stagnant. The goddex of mystery and crossroads could never be forced into a few neat prayers, a rosary to pray mindlessly while going about your morning routine, a false declaration of belief brought from the guilt that would come from the absence of prayer. Cassandra was not that, would never require thoughtless words of praise. They are not power hungry, desperate to be better than the other gods. Cassandra is Help and Healing wrapped into Mystery and Wonder and Twilight, a comfortable question. 

Kristen thinks to every time she has ever been comfortable in a question. When she talked with Jawbone or her other therapist who did not live with her. When she worked though thoughts of where to go next and what they should do with her friends. Joking arguments over what they should have for dinner, small debates over the type of wood she should use for the pews with Tracker. Back and forths with Riz over homework for their non-magical healing class. The questions that do not stay in her mind, that she puts to text or speaks aloud. A conversation. Could that be prayer?

“Hello?” She asks hesitantly into the air. “How are you?”

A gust of wind ruffles her hair and the ground below her knees suddenly feels softer somehow.

“Glad to hear it,” Kristen smiles. “So I used the new spell you gave me.”

Her voice echoes in the mostly empty church, and Kristen feels the way the twilight outside pours through the stained glass windows surrounding her on the sides. She talks until she feels her throat start to grow sore, and stands to the feeling of a hand on her shoulder. 

“Thank you.” She says. 

_ Sleep well, Kristen. Thank you for speaking to me. _

The sun is just beginning to rise in the sky when Kristen sneaks her way back into Mordred Manor, crumbling the note she had left for Jawbone just in case alone the way. She falls into bed with a smile on her face, eyes staring out her window to see a single star still visible in the sliver of purple in the sky, slowly being pushed out by orange. 

“Good night, Cassandra.”

An unseen hand pushes the hair out of her face, and Kristen sleeps until the noise of her family making lunch drags her out of bed for the sake of grilled cheese. 

**Author's Note:**

> hey. its my birthday. a fun gifts would be comments. just saying
> 
> no fr, this was fun to write! i went to catholic school and have recently become a lot more pagan, and the very stark differences between methods of prayer have always made me think of kristen, and how going through any time of religious change can have a lot of growing pains
> 
> if you like my writing, i have a lot of other d20 fics and some other fun stuff you can check out!!


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